In rural and urban environments, lawns and other outdoor surfaces often require care. Weather conditions and extraneous uses can compact, damage, or upturn surfaces; branches or thatch can accumulate over parts of the surface; rocks can resurface over time; and dead branches, twigs, or man-made debris can collect over parts of the surface. Different tools exist in the marketplace to care for these surfaces. This disclosure relates generally to these devices and their methods of use.
Understandably, if a small surface requires care, or a great degree of precision in the work is required, handheld devices may be best suited. For intermediately sized parcels, devices can be attached to small, portable frames moved over the ground by a walking operator by pushing or pulling a handlebar. In some cases, portable frames can include motors to aid with movement over the surfaces, such as classical lawnmowers. For larger parcels, grooming assemblies can be connected to a large vehicle via a tongue. These vehicles can range from small tractors, when private yards are treated, to large agricultural tractors, when, for instance, brush must be cut from the side of a highway. This disclosure relates specifically to grooming apparatuses that are attached to the rear of a vehicle.
Different types of implements exist to care for the above-described external surfaces. U.S. Pat. No. 7,073,317 is directed to a dethatcher designed to remove and collect undesirable small ground cover debris known as thatch. U.S. Pat. No. D550,252 is directed to a plug aerator capable of removing small plugs from the surface to benefit natural and artificial water circulation below a surface that has been compacted. U.S. Pat. Nos. D519,529 and 7,063,165 are directed to a spike aerator designed to create aeration veins between compacted zones of a surface to stimulate plant growth. These four patents, owned by the assignee in interest of the present application, are illustrative of different grooming assemblies in the marketplace. These patents are hereby incorporated fully by reference. Rollers and other implements are also used to compact surfaces that have been damaged and are uneven.
With these grooming assemblies, each has a frame that can be mounted to the rear of a vehicle for transportation and use over a surface. One known method of controlling the level of contact with the ground by the different implements of the grooming assemblies is to design the equipment with variable weight. Weight is added to force the implements into or onto the ground, and the weight is removed to aid with the transportation and storage of the grooming assemblies. These assemblies can also include a frame with a guardrail to hold a dead weight while in operating mode and a handle and movable wheel or wheels to raise the frame away from the ground while in transporting mode.
One of the main problems with these often heavy grooming assemblies is their size and the need for individual storage space in a warehouse, a garage, a shed, or the like for each of the plurality of grooming assemblies. Some implements are designed to break a surface and may have sharp edges or spikes, which may be a hazard when they are not stored flat against the ground. Presently, an operator who needs to compact a surface, remove thatch, and/or aerate an area must purchase and store a plurality of heavy and bulky pieces of equipment. What is needed is a grooming assembly capable of addressing the issues of storage and need for a plurality of implements without adversely affecting grooming capacity of the overall system.